The Command to Care

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 

Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.
Genesis 1:28-30 NASB

I remember when my parents gave me my first guitar.  I had wanted one for some time, I had invested time learning to play on my dad’s guitar.  When my parents gave me my own guitar it came with a solemn charge.  This was a gift, but it was expected that this gift would be taken care of.  It was a way to show appreciation.  I was not just being given a gift, but I was being given a gift that needed to be maintained and was meant to be used for a specific purpose.  God created mankind to fill, care for, and enjoy His amazing creation of planet earth.  This charge was repeated to Noah and his descendants after the great flood (Genesis 9:1-4).  This planet is a special charge for humanity.  To discover what God has made and how to best support it as it supports us by God’s provision.  Just as my parents’ charge to me to care for my first guitar was really for my greatest good, so caring for this amazing planet is an important part of the charge of every believer.  We were never meant to abdicate our management of this domain either in the sense of abusing it, or in the sense of worshipping it and thinking that the earth would be better off without us.  We are meant to interact responsibly with our physical environment, appreciating and enjoying the great gift that it is to us from our loving Heavenly Father.  And yes, I still have my first guitar, and it still gets played, enjoyed and maintained.  

The Sky

Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.  And God called the firmament heaven.  So the evening and the morning were the second day." Genesis 1:6-8

As a child I remember lying on my back and staring up at the sky.  Day or night this practice never failed to amaze me.  Whether looking out into a beautiful deep blue, clouds or out into an endless sea of stars there seems to be something amazing about that expanse that the Lord God spoke into place to divide the waters from the waters.  I wonder what an angel looking on at God's work in Creation week would think.  God had made this gigantic galaxy and in some corner of it He made this tiny ball that He had filled with water.  Then He made some space in between the waters to put things.  I wonder of the angels were curious as to what he would do with that little bit of space.  Could they have imagined that He was clearing a space for plants and birds, elephants and elk?  Could they have dared to think that He was creating an environment to place little creatures that would be both spirit and animal?  Would it be possible to even dream that He would imprint His very own image upon those creatures?  Yet more amazing that Jesus Christ, the Son of God would take on that form and die to restore them to Himself.  After that, that little space of sky that God created on the second day would be the medium through which Christ would be raised up into heaven to sit down at the right hand of God.  That very same sky will one day contain the returning King and hosts of His saints, saved by Grace.  All this is possible only because God cleared a little space between the waters.

Settled Around the Tabernacle

"Everyone of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard, beside the emblems of his father's house; they shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting." -Numbers 2:2 NKJV

It is difficult to imagine moving and ordering the thousands of people of Israel though the time in the desert. Yet, there was order, and that order had great meaning.  The tribes were set up around a centerpiece: the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was the place where God designed to meet man. There the sacrifices would be made.  There the Ark of the Testimony sat. There the bronze laver, there the show bread. Each of these things pointed to Jesus Christ.  The Tabernacle was the place where the Holy God would meet with sinful man. This was the center of their camp. Each tribe was given a place around the tabernacle. Their relationship to God was the center of their existence; bothe corporately and individually.

Everything in the tabernacle is a picture of all that Christ came to accomplish.  Now we spiritually must mimic what God had Israel display physically. We must gather ourselves around the One who "tabernacled" among us. (John 1:14). Our relationship to Him the source of our unity and our direction. If you long for greater unity in the Church you must settle around the One who, alone, sits at the center.